LOS ANGELES (CN) – The Department of Homeland Security imprisoned a U.S. citizen for 3½ months and maliciously charged him with criminal re-entry after deportation, though he has been a citizen for 32 years, Ruben Ray Rice claims in Federal Court. Another U.S. citizen claims the DHS imprisoned him for 6 months and then deported him.

Rice claims he was imprisoned from July 7 until Oct. 13, 2007, at the immigration prison in San Pedro, Calif., then at the LA Metropolitan jail, then at the Santa Ana city jail, and then at the immigration prison in Lancaster, Calif., despite his repeated protests that he is a U.S. citizen, born to a U.S. citizen father and a Mexican mother. He claims he became a U.S. citizen in 1976, and that the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement continued to hold him a prisoner, in Santa Ana and Lancaster, after a public defender secured his putative release. In the other complaint, Erasto Vallejo claims the DHS and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency imprisoned him from April 27, 2007 until Oct. 19 that year, when they deported him. Vallejo claims he gained legal residency in 1992, when he was 10, and became a U.S. citizen in 2000. Both plaintiffs are represented by Matthew Millen.